Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Title Decisions

Supernatural/Possessive film titlesThe majority of these films use one word titles; this could be to reveal as little of the plot as possible, keeping to the theme of mystery and suspense that many supernatural/possessive films adhere to. However many that do use one word titles do actually ten to give some indication of what the film itself will be about; examples of these included Mirrors 2, Poltergeist, The Exorcist and Th13teen Ghosts. This is why originally we were thinking about perhaps naming our film something simple such as Ouija, but we later decided that we preferred to have a more obscure title, as the trailer itself shows that the ouija board is the main focus of the film/film trailer.

How we came to choose our trailer titleWe didn't have a title before we created our narrative. When we decided the main theme would be the girls using the ouija board and the consequences of this, we wanted the title to relate to the idea of superstition or supernatural creatures i.e. ghosts. However then we decided that the title should be related to the punishment the girls are recieving, so we started to look into the ideas of religious punishment ie redemption and forgiveness. We also wanted to look into religious themes because of the connotations to the characters themselves, who should be punished for their promiscuity and attitudes to drinking and smoking. Eventually we went with the idea of having to repay God for your sins, which the girls are doing by enduring the spirit attacks; one word for this is penance, which we felt fit our story quite well. The dictionary definition of Penance is as follows:

"An act of self-mortification or devotion performed voluntarily to show sorrow for a sin or other wrongdoing"